


The Ambassador’s Son

by A_Diamond



Series: Fullmoon Ficlet prompts [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Regency, Ambassador Stilinski, Cultural Differences, First Meetings, Historical Inaccuracy, M/M, Misunderstandings, No period-typical homophobia, Noble Hales, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining Derek, Rating May Change, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-09 21:51:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13490499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Diamond/pseuds/A_Diamond
Summary: Hosting Ambassador Stilinski’s welcome party was a great honor—as the Marquise Hale insisted on telling her son repeatedly during preparations.“You won’t be skulking in the library tonight, Derek. You’ll be not only present but engaged and charming with our guests, and you know I mean through all the dancing as well as dinner.”





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> This is very much a WIP; chapters will be written for Fullmoon Ficlet prompts as they come up, and not necessarily weekly. Chapter titles are the FMF prompt for that chapter.

Hale Manor hadn’t been so festively adorned in years, since the Viscountess’s wedding. The theme of the decor differed, of course, from the silver and rose of Laura’s nuptials; the flowers, candles, and chalk drawings flourished in shades of red, gold, and blue in honor of the visiting dignitary.

Hosting Ambassador Stilinski’s welcome party was a great honor—as the Marquise Hale insisted on telling her son repeatedly during preparations.

“You won’t be skulking in the library tonight, Derek. You’ll be not only present but engaged and charming with our guests, and you know I mean through all the dancing as well as dinner.”

“No one wants to dance with me, mother,” he argued with a petulance even he knew was better suited to a spoiled child than a grown lord. He just hated stuffy events. “They’d much rather dance with Cora.”

Talia rewarded his cheek with a smack on the arm. “Many people want to dance with you,” she corrected. “You don’t want to dance with them, and I don’t care. But don’t worry, Cora will also be there all evening, like a good hostess. So will Laura, with strict instruction that she is not to cut in on any of her husband’s dances.”

That was crueller than dragging Derek from the comfort of the library: Chris tended to attract the interest of matriarchs and dowagers who assumed they could take liberties due to their status. Though they were never given the opportunity to do it more than once—including Derek’s own widower uncle, which had made for uncomfortable family gatherings until they resolved their differences—Chris understandably preferred to avoid putting himself in the line of fire.

“If Chris can make that sacrifice,” she told him without a hint of remorse, “so can you.”

-

Jan Stilinski was a solid and good-humored man, as far as Derek could tell from the other side of his mother’s disapprovingly arched eyebrows. He’d defied her orders just long enough to avoid the formal introductions and slipped into the banquet hall alongside the first course. As he took his usual seat, Talia gave him a look that promised wrath bordering on the Divine.

Stilinski, who himself had an empty chair beside him, offered her a sympathetic wince. “What is it about sons that always wants to cause us trouble?” he mused.

Next to Derek, Cora snorted; across from them, Laura and Chris hid their grins with slightly better grace. A few unrelated guests further down the table, who heard their mirth but not the cause, eyed the whole group with poorly hidden suspicion, even though the Hales had a long history of being just slightly on the right side of reputable. The family’s peerage and wealth, along with Talia’s iron will, were all that kept them tolerated in polite society.

It was no easy task for her; since her own brush with controversy when she married a commoner, she’d had to manage numerous scandals that would have sent a noble house with a lesser head into ruin. Her brother had publicly claimed his illegitimate daughter after losing his wife and heir to tragedy. Her own heir had married a widower nearly Talia’s age, a man whose daughter was older than some of her children. Her other daughter had run away to exotic lands to seek her fortune for two years at the tender age of fourteen, and she had sent two grooms to accompany Cora instead of dragging her back before she was ready to come home.

She sighed, a mild noise that nevertheless contained all the nuance of her long-suffering, and answered, “I fear sometimes that all of my children exist to cause trouble, Ambassador Stilinski. Derek is at least mannered enough to keep his misdeeds confined to ill-manners as a host. He takes after his father, who as you’ll note went to the effort to be out of the country just to avoid this affair.”

Stilinski gave a dry chuckle. “My boy takes after his mother more than me. I had my share of childhood mischief, of course, but I was never much of a firestarter. Not,” he added hastily after a moment’s consideration, “that I think he’s starting fires on your grounds.”

“He wouldn’t be the first today, truth told. Our own little arsonist is still a few years too young to enjoy tonight’s festivities.”

Derek spared a moment to glare up in the general direction of his brother’s room; he’d had to attend dozens of balls when he was Aaron’s age. Maybe he should’ve tried to ignite a few trees.

The meal continued with only light conversation, no more of which was dedicated to Derek’s poorer qualities. Throughout, the Ambassador kept looking to the doors; he looked more resigned than impatient, making Derek wonder what sort of boy his son was, to inspire such an expression.

A daydreamer, always lost in his thoughts but otherwise harmless? Surely that wouldn’t earn the moniker of firestarter. Most likely he was either a general miscreant with more energy than common sense or such a malevolent terror that his father had given up on controlling him. Hopefully, were it the latter, Stilinski wouldn’t have brought him on a trip of diplomacy.

-

Dessert—delicate cookies and rich cream—came and went, and still Ambassador Stilinski’s son failed to appear. As the last of the plates was cleared away, Talia stood and they all followed; it was time to make their way to the largest hall in the manor, where everything had been cleared out to make room for dancing.

Though it felt absurdly cavernous with only the dozen of them from dinner, Talia’s timing was, as ever, impeccable. Guests who hadn’t merited an invite to the more intimate meal soon began to arrive in twos and threes, filling out the hall quickly. Derek’s mother waited by the top of the stairs to greet them as they arrived, accepting their praise for the fine state of her home and acquainting them with the Ambassador before sending them down to the rest of the gathering.

Once an appropriate period of time had been allowed for all those not arriving indecently late, Talia led Stilinski down the stairs to wave the band into life and claim his first dance, as hostess. Before she twirled off, she finally took pity on Derek, stuck in conversation with the young Lord Whittemore for whom he cared not at all, and made a sweeping motion back up to the head of the staircase.

“Attend to any stragglers during the first song, won’t you, Derek?”

He had rarely in his life been so quick to answer, “Of course, Mother.”

Only one couple arrived on Derek’s watch: Baron Vernon Boyd and his fiancée Lady Erica Reyes, two of Derek’s dearest friends. His only friends, in truth, and he took great pride in having been the one to introduce them on a fine spring day with a ride across the Hale Preserve.

“I’m going to dance,” Erica announced. “You two may wait here for me.”

Who were they to refuse such a command? Two upstanding gentlemen, they didn’t dare dream of defying—and she was bound to call upon each of them to take a turn around the floor with her before too long, regardless. While the opportunity was there, they took advantage of it to look engaged in meaningful discussion and thus avoid being accosted by anyone else.

Derek’s mother gave him an eye at the end of the first song that said she knew full well what he was doing, but didn’t call him down.

Because Derek remained at the top of the stairs by the closed double doors, he was in the perfect position to be crashed into by a stranger hurling himself through those doors with remarkable urgency and very nearly falling down the stairs. But between himself and Boyd, they managed to catch the stumbling figure before he could crack into anything.

He was a youth in fine clothing, too old to be a boy but still just flirting with the cusp of manhood. Derek’s arm tightened involuntarily around the interloper’s back as he was graced with the first glimpse of the stranger’s face. Warm brown eyes called to mind honey and wood, fine cognac, the intricate headboard above Derek’s bed.

Derek was smitten long before his gaze travelled to a mouth popped open with surprise, but that sight still put shameful thoughts in his head and warmth in his cheeks.

A soft cough to his left and Boyd’s quiet murmur, “Viscount Hale,” drew Derek’s awareness back to his surroundings. Boyd had let go and backed away as soon as the man was stable; Derek had not. He still had one arm wrapped around the man’s back, holding him far too close to be proper once the danger had passed.

He steadied the captivating stranger and forced himself to put distance between them, his heart like a runaway stallion. “Apologies. Are you quite recovered?”

The young man’s mouth—Derek silently cursed his fixation on it, and on the beauty mark to one side—stretched to offer Derek a sweet smile. “If I say no,” he asked, voice low and conspiratorial, doing nothing to dissuade Derek’s attentions, “will you rescue me again?”

Someone who wasn’t Boyd groaned, snapping through Derek’s second enamored daze of the evening. Ambassador Stilinski had climbed the stairs without Derek even noticing and stood a step below them, expression skeptical. Even less amused, Derek’s mother regarded them from the base of the staircase. The angle of her eyebrows did not bode well for his future.

“Marquise Hale, Viscount, allow me to introduce my son,” Stilinski said drily.


	2. Voyage

Ever the considerate hostess, and no doubt conscious of the spectacle at the head of her staircase drawing undue attention from the guests, Talia intervened before the scene could play out any further.

“We’re sorry to have missed you at dinner,” she told Stilinski’s son, perfectly balanced on the fine line between chastisement and genuine regret. “You must be hungry. Derek, won’t you show Ambassador Stilinski’s son to the kitchens?”

It wasn’t a suggestion, which she proved by instructing Boyd that she would take the next dance with him, and she thought the Ambassador would enjoy talking to Lady Reyes about her work with the country surgeons.

“If that suits you, of course,” she deferred to Stilinski with no true deference apparent in her admirably straight spine and high chin.

Though initially taken aback, Ambassador Stilinski quickly looked more impressed than offended at how she took command of the situation. He nodded his approval, only telling his son, “We’ll discuss your conduct later,” before descending to the ballroom. Derek suspected he might have had much more to say if good manners hadn’t demanded he do so in English.

Their departure left him alone with the young man, who was looking at him with expectantly raised brows when Derek regained his composure enough to face him again. The look widened his already innocently large eyes and Derek twice cursed his ungentlemanly thoughts at their accidentally physical meeting. The Ambassador’s son wasn’t so young after all, maybe even older than Cora, but he was a guest, and not just in their home. Young Stilinski was newly arrived from his own country, along with his father, and no doubt overwhelmed by all the differences from what he was accustomed to.

In all, it was a wholly inappropriate circumstance for Derek to consider courtship.

Putting the thought firmly out of his mind, he opened the door that the younger Stilinski had stumbled through moments before and gestured down the hallway. “Right this way, if you would, Mr Stilinski.” He felt stiffer than even his starched shirt could justify, unnatural and overly conscious of his every move, particularly in relation to how near any sweep of his hand came to the other man’s body.

To his great mortification, Stilinski wrapped an arm around his outstretched one as though he were preparing for a turn around the town with Derek as his escort. “Please,” he said, his voice no less tempting than it had been for all that Derek knew he should not find it so. “Call me M__.”

Derek stumbled over the rug, though not a wrinkle could be found throughout the entire household. Stilinski, whose request Derek had been unable to properly interpret on the first attempt, thus so much less the chance of him honoring it, tripped along with him and leaned heavily on his arm to recover. The smile he gave Derek once they’d both found their footing again, reminiscent of his earlier impertinent provocation, gave Derek pause as to whether it had been a result of his graceless misstep after all.

No, he told himself, that was not an acceptable idea to ponder. Stilinski was not trifling with his attentions; he was just of a more open and expressive blood than Derek’s countrymen. He was a foreigner in a new land, enthusiastic for new acquaintances and experiences, and there was no call for Derek to impose his lecherous views upon a young man’s thirst for knowledge.

“My sincerest apologies, I don’t know what’s come over me this evening.” Though he meant the apology for far more than just his clumsiness, he hoped Stilinski hadn’t noticed the rest of his inexcusable behavior and would take it as the simpler of the two. “Can you say that again?”

Stilinski looked absolutely delighted.

-

In the kitchen, for the fifth or sixth time, Derek did his best to replicate the sounds as they left—no, he was quite finished focusing on those lips. He did his best to repeat the word, but from the mischief playing in the man’s eyes he suspected that not only had he mangled it, he’d turned it into something unforgivably insulting.

But Stilinski was so insistent that Derek learn his proper title, there was no permissible way he could refuse it. He would be a host up to his mother’s standards, at least for this one guest.

If only the effort weren’t so frustrating, though. For all that he preferred to spend his time with books rather than people, his interests aimed more toward art and literature; Cora was the one with the head for languages, not him.

He tried again, “Mieczyslaw?” and ruthlessly smothered the flush of pleasure that warmed his chest at the seemingly genuine smile that his latest attempt earned. He pictured Cora in the boy’s place, excited to be welcomed into a strange place and with no idea that her new friend harbored the sorts of feelings that men sometimes did, and that returned his shame to its proper place in his conscience.

“Good!” Stilinski enthused. “Much better than anyone at school was ever able to say it. They all just called me Stiles.”

It was more than just the words Derek didn’t recognize; the entire conversation felt like it was in another language. Surely the boys in his homeland had been able to pronounce a word of their own making. Unless it wasn’t native to them either for some reason, and the other form was?

“Stiles? Does that mean the same thing as... Mieczyslaw?” The foreign title rolled off his tongue more smoothly than before; he was making progress.

Mieczyslaw Stilinski’s head tipped to the side and his forehead scrunched in confusion, but before Derek could worry about whether his meaning had been lost in the translating and how to rephrase the question if so, he nodded. “I suppose they do, if you consider it that way. They both mean me.”

“Which do you prefer?”

“I’ve grown accustomed to being Stiles,” he said thoughtfully, then leaned closer, as though sharing a conspiracy, and looked at Derek through lowered lashes. “But I like the way you say Mieczyslaw.”

Spinning around abruptly to hide his reaction to that sight, to the Mieczyslaw’s suggestive voice, Derek had to swallow several times before he wet his throat enough to speak. “We have a well-stocked larder,” he managed to offer at last. “Smoked meats and cheeses, some fruits from our orchards. Or I can summon our cook if you prefer something hot, though that will take longer. She’s already retired for the night.”

“No, no, please don’t have her disturbed just for me. An apple would do nicely if you have one, or—or a pear?” His tentative excitement brought to mind a schoolboy remembering a favored treat he hadn’t had in years and it pleased Derek to no end to be able to reward that hope.

“You’re in luck. You’ve arrived just before the end of pear season, so we have some fresh from this morning.”

He slipped through the heavy door and took longer than was perhaps entirely necessary to find the basket of pears, then to pick out the largest and least blemished among them. The cool air of the larder quenched his heated skin and calmed his head, leeching away the fantasies of a romance that he knew could never come to fruition. He wouldn’t be the next to bring scandal on the Hale name, no matter how adept his mother was at deflecting it.

So it was he emerged with a renewed conviction and the most perfect pear he could find, which he offered to their guest. “Please don’t hesitate to let me know if there’s anything else you want, Mieczyslaw Stilinski. We’re honored to host you and the Ambassador.”

“Just Mieczyslaw.”

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Just like that, Derek felt wrong-footed again; especially because he had to wait for Stilinski to finish... sniffing. He was smelling the pear, looking delighted to be doing so.

“You don’t have to say the whole thing. Just Mieczyslaw.”

“I see. Is that how they say it where you’re from?”

Derek got another odd look for that, as though he were a particularly compelling puzzle that Stilinski was determined to solve. He would make sure Cora spoke with the Ambassador’s son before the night was over, they should enjoy comparing their experiences with the natives of strange lands.

“Yes,” Stilinski answered at last. “That’s how they say it.”

“Of course. Yes, good.”

Fortunately for what precious little remained of Derek’s dignity, Stilinski let his floundering go and turned his focus to the fruit.

Derek ought to have brought him a plate and a knife. Partly because it would have been the properly hospitable thing to do, and partly—a significant part, at that—because without them, Stilinski’s manner of consumption was most distracting.

He tore into the ripe flesh of the fruit with enthusiasm, voracious bites that marked either his hunger or his approval; or both. And as he chewed and swallowed, Derek had to force himself to ignore the way the juice made his lips glisten.

“I hope you had a pleasant voyage, Mieczyslaw?” Derek asked, desperately seeking a distraction but also sincerely curious. “I’ve never been further than the city, but you must have seen much of the world with your father.”

Stilinski shook his head, then licked sweet stickiness from his fingers—he would be the death of Derek, of that he was certain—before he explained, “We traveled more when I was younger, but once I was old enough to be sent away to school, he wanted me to finish my education. This is the first time we’ve lived in the same place for years.”

To Derek, who sometimes felt he couldn’t escape the noise and bustle of his family in even the deepest corners of Hale Manor or the furthest reaches of the Preserve, that sounded like a terribly lonely childhood.

“Were you on a ship?” he asked rather than dwell on it. “I’ve only ever seen one from a distance.”

Waving his fingers breezily, Stilinski said, “Sailing isn’t all that exciting. It can take you to interesting places, but the ship itself is just so small. You run out of places to explore after the first day. Oh, although!”

He stepped forward suddenly, startlingly, and his eyes lit as they locked with Derek’s. “We did have a storm last time I crossed the sea that nearly took me and half of the crew into the waves...”


End file.
